


mix it up

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [15]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Dinner Date, F/M, a lil angsty, beth and rio are garbage at communicating what's new, dean's still a manipulative dumpster fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20059045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Beth deals with a cagey Rio and runs into someone from her past.“We told the kids,” Beth blurts. “Dean’s at job interviews now. And when he gets a job, and when money starts flowing in from Fusil, that’s when we’ll get an apartment—”Rio furrows his brow onwe’ll, his face asking the question that he won’t.“Oh,” Beth stammers. “We, um. We’re doing this new divorce thing called nesting? It’s—well, it’s good for the kids, they say—you know, if the parents can make it work, and um, we’re going to try that. We’ll share an apartment, the kids will stay here, and uh, we’ll switch off…”Rio’s face is indifferent, but she can hear the sound of his leg bouncing as the footrest on his chair squeaks. “So you tellin’ me you gonna be sharin’ a bed.”Beth scrunches her face. “Well, um, I mean, if you want to be technical.”“'Technical' just another word for ‘right.’”





	mix it up

**Author's Note:**

> It's a quick turnaround with a new update, but it's medievalraven's birthday, and she is a GODDESS that helped me out so much with planning and organizing the next arc in this fic, so I wanted to dedicate this to her for her birthday. Happy birthday!!!

Annie’s talking before she even gets through Beth’s front door. Since Beth and Ruby are in the kitchen, though, they can’t make out a word of it until the door slams shut behind her. 

“—where ANYONE could have seen and—” 

“Girl, nobody can hear a damn word you’re saying,” Ruby reprimands, turning on the barstool and watching Annie stomp towards them. 

Annie groans and starts taking off her winter jacket and beanie, depositing them on the hall chair. “I was _ saying_—” 

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Ruby says sarcastically, poking at Annie’s lack of pleasantries. They haven’t all been together since Beth went to Canada. Beth and Annie had seen each other yesterday on Christmas, of course, when Annie brought Sadie over for the big holiday breakfast, but they hadn’t had any alone time, any _ adult _ time. 

“Nice to see you. Happy?” Annie grimaces at Ruby. “As I was _ saying— _thanks for setting that meeting up with Rio, but uhhhh, could you have at least given me a heads up? He came and ambushed me at work where ANYONE could have seen. Like, say, the undercover FBI agent that’s my boyfriend-slash-boss?”

Beth blinks back her astonishment. She‘d had no idea that Rio had gone to see Annie. “He came to see you? When?”

“Like, days ago,” Annie says. “You’re kind of missing the point, though.”

“What did he come to see you about?” asks Ruby. 

“This is the point,” Annie says, jabbing her pointer finger at them. “And this is you.” She has her other hand _ whoosh _ past her finger without touching it. “What if Noah had seen us together?”

“Well… did he?” Ruby asks, eyebrows raised.

“Well, no, but he _ could _ have.”

“Days ago? Why are you just mentioning this now?” Beth asks, trying to sound nonchalant. She nibbles at one of her leftover Christmas cookies. It feels weird that she didn’t know about this—from Rio _ or _ Annie. Well, it sort of made sense with Rio—when she’d seen him last night, he’d been drunk and bloody, and he’d had a one-track mind. Still, though. She felt out of the loop. 

“Because I kind of wanted to be a dick to you about it in person,” Annie says bluntly. “You’re mad I didn’t tell you? Why didn’t _you_ tell_ me_?” 

Beth puts her hands up, absolving herself of any blame. “Hey, I mentioned that you needed the medicine when we went to Canada—he told me he’d talk to you, but he didn’t tell me when. This is all Rio.”

“How do you even have a real conversation with him?” Annie asks, squinting. “He only speaks two sentences at a time, and leaves out the most important information. Ugh.” 

Beth just laughs, and then Annie adds, “It’s like he speaks in these vague riddles. Though, to be fair, I was pretty stoned.”

“You’re getting high at work now? _ Annie_. Boomer got you felony drug charges. Are you really—”

“Beth, relax, okay? No. We smoked a joint together.”

Beth pinches her lips. Imagining this is breaking her brain a little. “Where?”

“In my car. Which, by the way, he was extremely judgy about. He may not have said anything, but I could tell. He did _not_ appreciate my snack stash, even though he ate the entire rest of my bag of jerky plus a twinkie.” 

“Bitch, none of us like your car. There is a reason we never let you drive.”

“Oh. I just thought you thought I was a bad driver.” 

“Well, there’s that too,” Ruby needles. 

“So, is he going to help you or not?” Beth looks at Annie expectantly. He’d said that he wasn’t making any promises...

“Yes and no,” Annie says, and she finally exhausts herself of her anger and plops on a seat on the island. She reaches across it to steal the plate of cookies in front of Beth. “He’s getting the meds, but I have to find _ fifteen _ clients for him to sell the drugs to.”

“Whoa,” Ruby says. 

“That’s not even the worst part. I have to do it all for free.” She digs through the small pile of cookies and finds the one with the most icing on it. “Because ‘you in the red, sis.’” 

“That man really seems to love a pet name,” Ruby says, and Beth thinks, _ You have no idea. _

Annie groans. “I really thought there were going to be perks to you guys making the beast with two backs. It’s like there’s no personal benefit to me at all!”

Ruby cocks her head. “Well...”

“What?” 

“You are _ alive_,” Ruby says. “After we dumped those drugs…” 

“‘We’?” 

“Okay, after _ I _dumped the drugs…”

“How are you going to do it? Find clients, I mean,” Beth asks. She prefers as much as possible to not discuss Rio’s penchant for murdering rotten eggs and putting his gun in their faces. It’s not that she’s made peace with it, or that she forgets about it and can ignore it—it’s just that it’s not a big enough barrier to stop her from wanting to be with him. And _ that_? That’s terrifying. Coming to terms with that part of herself is something she’d rather do in private, without Annie and Ruby’s judgment—especially Ruby’s. While Ruby had given her that pep talk not so long ago, encouraging Beth to act on her feelings (more or less), Beth knew, deep down, that Ruby would probably never fully come around to Rio. She was too inherently good, and even if Rio gave up everything tomorrow, his past would always make him who he was.

“Dunno. Was hoping you could help me with that,” Annie says, biting into her cookie. 

“You could find some support groups for Sadie,” Beth suggests. “Seek people out, see how they’re doing accessing the medication. You’d probably find others who are struggling to afford it, and even some people that are only barely affording it now. But you can only do this with adults—if you get kids involved, eventually you get parents involved.”

Annie nods, considering this, when Dean walks into the house through the mudroom. He’s got his krav maga bag slung over his shoulder and he’s whistling. 

“Hi,” Beth says. 

“Hey,” he says, and his face breaks out into a smile. He looks at her like he really sees her—a rarity—and says, “You look really nice today.”

Taken aback, Beth feels her cheeks warm. She glances down at her outfit—nothing special, just jeans and a floral blouse she’s worn dozens of times. “Um, thanks.”

“Disgusting,” Annie mutters under her breath, and uncharacteristically, Dean ignores her, skipping off upstairs to go shower.

Ruby’s eyes widen and she raises her eyebrows. “What was that?”

“No idea.” She shrugs. Lately it was like Dean was a whole new person—ever since he’d asked her what made her choose Rio over him (she can hear the echo even now of him asking the most painfully obvious, easily answered questions:_ “Does he, like, listen to you more? Encourage you in ways that I don't?”_) it was like he had finally realized that he _ should _ be listening to her more and being the partner he never was, even though she’d dug the knife in by telling him how much she loved having sex with Rio. She’d expected some backlash, but there was none. Now Dean was reprimanding the kids’ misbehavior, doing household chores without being asked, and for Christmas, he’d even got her a book she’d mentioned offhandedly several weeks ago that she’d wanted to read.

“Maybe he’s getting laid?” Annie suggests. 

“God, we can all hope,” Beth responds.

* * *

Beth doesn’t see Rio for a while. After a few days goes by, she texts him with the excuse that she’s just following up on the Fusil business. This rankles her a bit, because he should just be communicating this all with her _ anyway_, but he writes back to tell her that he’s reached out to associates and he’ll let her know when he has more information. The answer is short and perfunctory.

Beth racks her brain for some excuse to see him without just _ asking _ him outright, and she tries to sound as casual as possible when she asks him about the gun practice lessons he’d mentioned before. Rio only writes back to say that Marcus has just returned from México and that he has him for the rest of winter break. 

Beth feels a mixture of apprehension and relief—she’s gotten so used to seeing him in regular intervals that she’d forgotten that winter break usually shuffles around people’s schedules, although she’s experiencing the exact same thing with her sister and Ruby. But still, his responses seem short and cagey, and she has to try and convince herself that she’s just overthinking everything. 

She keeps herself busy worrying about money—days after Christmas, Dean had lost his job, and the period of time where he’d seemed like a whole new person had disappeared into a puff of smoke when she’d found out after he’d had a breakdown and smeared the spaghetti dinner she’d cooked all over his shirt. She’d mustered up the decency to comfort him afterward, trying not to stare at the giant red stain on his ugly blue polo while she also tried to sympathize with his desire to “be his own boss.” After all, she was the one that had ripped his business from him and then gotten it seized by the FBI. But also she was feeling like she should try a little harder to respect him. That conversation with Rio was settling in her bones, and Dean was making an effort, wasn’t he? The least she could do was meet him halfway.

* * *

They tell the kids about the divorce on the first of the year. Beth had wanted to do it before—it felt a little too poetic for her taste to do it to coincide with “new year” and “fresh starts” ideals, but Dean had convinced her to extend the good Christmas feeling for the rest of break. The kids had reacted somewhat better than she’d expected, honing in on the likelihood that they might get twice the amount of presents for every special occasion. They didn't seem to care about much else. Beth knew that feeling wasn’t likely to last, though. Once they started feeling real changes, then it would sink in. Then they would have to deal with the fallout.

This is what she tells Dean after they put all the kids to bed after they deliver the news.

“We need to figure out our living situation,” she says, grabbing him a beer out of the refrigerator and handing it to him on the couch. She bustles back to the kitchen and as she fills her own glass with bourbon, she elaborates, “It’s going to help the kids feel like it’s more real. We’ve been in this limbo for a long time now and… it’s not good for them—or us.”

_ And not just us_, Beth thinks to herself, remembering Rio snapping, “Yeah, maybe I do,” when she’d suggested he wanted Dean to find out about them. She _ needs _ them to sever this thing between them; the ties to Dean feel like a dead weight that’s holding her back from progressing, from growing. 

Dean grabs the remote and turns down the volume to almost nothing: another new thing. She remembers how many times she'd tried to have a serious conversation with him at the same time that he tried following the game. He turns towards her and watches as she comes to sit next to him on the couch.

“I know. I agree with you. I just… don’t know how we’re going to make that happen right now, money-wise.” His voice is vulnerable—she suspects he’s still embarrassed about losing his job at Wheel Deal. 

Beth nods, taking a drink of her bourbon and feeling the burn in her throat. She doesn’t really have a desire to squash him any further, but something has to change. “I’ll be making some money in the next few weeks, I think.” 

“That's good,” he says. “I don’t want to make you feel like you have to pay for everything at first, though. I’m looking for something. Sent my resumé out a few places. Hoping I hear back about some interviews soon.” 

“Good." The TV catches her eye as her commercial comes on. She watches the silent version of herself walk down the line of cars and mouth words about imported teas and car seat installations. Dean watches her watch the commercial, and she sighs. If only the FBI would return the dealership to them, that would make things better—at least marginally.

“I’m really sorry,” he says quietly. “I know I’ve really messed up by losing this job—not to mention, you know, everything else. You’ve been… just amazing, Beth. It’s more than I deserve.” 

There was a time when she would have soothed him and insisted that no, that wasn’t true. Maybe she would have even pointed out the ways that she’s fumbled with their lives, too. But now all she says is, “Thank you.”

“No,” he says earnestly, and she turns to look at him and his eyes are glassy. “_I’m sorry_, Beth. You know… Now that we’ve told the kids, it’s just really hit me, you know?” 

“I know, me too,” she says, but she had been hit with _ relief_. 

He takes a swig of his beer. “I’m going to miss you, Beth.”

The admission makes Beth recoil a little bit. She hadn’t been expecting this. She’s speechless. 

“I really messed up.” Dean stares at the beer bottle in his hands, and he grimaces. “I keep thinking back to our wedding day. You were so gorgeous. Just—it just makes me sick to think about it, to think how I made all those promises and I just… I just broke them, like they were nothing. I’m not the person I wish I was.”

“Yeah,” Beth breathes. She squirms a bit in her seat. 

Dean glances at her and can see that she’s trying to come up with something, _ anything _ to say.

“You don’t have to respond. I’m not—I’m not asking you to make me feel better. It’s just… you’re still my best friend, you know? You’re still the person I want to tell everything to.”

Beth’s mouth falls open a bit, and she quickly takes another drink in order to give her something to do besides gape at him. Slowly, she says, “Well, we can be friends, right?” 

Rio and Elena were friends. Sure, Rio had gone on about the difference between him and her and Beth and Dean, but in an ideal world? It would make everything so much easier. And Beth has twenty years under her belt of forgive and forget. She could do it again if it meant that he would just let her go, if it meant that they could do kid exchanges and sportings events and graduations with some degree of cordiality. 

“Please?” Dean says with a shaky laugh. “I don’t know if I could do it without you, Bethie. You’re my oldest friend.” 

Beth gives him a small smile. 

Dean finishes off his beer and then his fingers twitch around the bottle as he obviously deliberates whether he should say what he’s thinking of saying next. His voice is broken when he finally musters up the courage to say it. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t all bad, right? We had some good times?” 

Can she give him this, she wonders? And then she looks at him and he’s actually _ crying_. Not loudly, not obnoxiously, just a few silent tears spilling over, and she remembers that she doesn’t hate him. Not really. Maybe she would, if she had still loved him by the time that she had discovered Amber. But the truth was, she’d been pretending for so long, denying for so long, _ numb _ to her entire life for _so long_ that it felt _ good _ to get mad. It felt good to smash up his office and to scream at him and kick him out because finally she was _ feeling _ something again. Beth knew that she didn’t deserve to be treated like she had, but she was also a little thankful that Dean had actually done something to implode their marriage. If he hadn’t, she would have lived the rest of her life out repressing every one of her emotions. 

Some gangster movie is on TV, the final showdown, and she can’t help but think of Rio now. It’s a pleasant change of pace, she can admit to herself, to have Dean here open and vulnerable in front of her, openly communicating his feelings to her, in contrast to always fighting to break down Rio’s walls. It’s nice. It’s easier.

And that knowledge sits in her gut and spreads like a warmth through her whole body, because she doesn’t want nice, and she doesn’t want easy. Not anymore. Not ever again. 

“Yeah, we had some good times,” Beth says, nodding. 

And so they reminisce there on the couch. Dean has a few more beers and Beth has a few more bourbons, and they laugh about the antics of their children and of Thanksgiving dinner dramas with his mother, and even some earlier memories—the shittiness of their first apartment, which _ always _smelled of pierogies, and the wedding day disasters (thanks to his dumbass best friend Travers), and they even go back to high school, remembering proms and first fights and the posters Beth used to hold up in the bleachers during Friday night football cheering for him. 

Eventually the gangster movie ends, and the next movie ends, and it’s late when they fall asleep on the couch watching one of Dean’s old favorites: an Adam Sandler movie she’d always thought was a little ridiculous, but now? Drunk and cozy on the couch with her kids sleeping happily upstairs? It’s not so bad. 

* * *

One morning in the second week of January, Beth spots Rio sitting on her picnic table when she’s making a pot of coffee after getting back from running the kids to school. Dean had offered to do it on his way to some job interviews since it was on the way to his first stop, but Beth insisted—she was not about to risk him being even one minute late. 

She abandons carefully measuring the water in the pot and just throws it the coffee maker and presses start before hurrying into the backyard. It’s an unusually bright and sunny day, but the air has a bite as she steps outside to meet him. 

Rio is sitting on the top of his table, his feet spread wide on the bench. His elbows rest on his knees and his fingers are linked. He looks so _ graceful _ all the time, and it always makes her heart stutter when she has a moment to really take him in. His scruff has grown out to a full beard, and he’s wearing his beanie, and he looks so _ good_. Beth feels butterflies in her stomach because she’s missed him. 

“Hey,” she says tentatively. 

“What’s up?”

She fumbles to answer this. “Oh, you know…”

Rio cocks an eyebrow.

“Um, what about you?” she asks, and she blushes, because why is she being so weird?

“Got good news about Fusil.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. I was able to talk to a lotta my associates up there, and it’s all good. He’s a dick, but we already knew that. Business seems legit, though.”

“Great,” Beth breathes. “So when do we start?”

“First shipment’ll be here next Friday.”

Beth smiles at him, and his lips curve up, but only just, and he stands as if to go. 

“Um, do you want to come in? I—I made coffee?”

Rio chews his lip, hands in his coat pockets. “Dean here?” 

“No,” Beth says quickly. 

“Aight,” he says, giving one brief nod. 

He follows her back into the kitchen and she pours them both a cup. Rio sits at the island, and Beth’s struck by the fact that he’s never done that before. 

Rio takes his coffee black, and he scowls after his first drink. “That tastes like shit, ma.”

“Well, you take it black. What do you expect?” she asks, stirring in her cream and sugar.

“Nah, somethin’ wrong with it.”

Beth takes a hesitant sip of her own cup, and her face twists into something of disgust. “Yech, I’m sorry,” she says, and she giggles a little. “I, um, mismeasured, I think. When I saw you out there I just—I wasn’t paying close attention.” 

Rio smirks and looks at her through heavily lidded eyes and Beth feels goosebumps erupt on her skin. 

“We told the kids,” Beth blurts. “Dean’s at job interviews now. And when he gets a job, and when money starts flowing in from Fusil, that’s when we’ll get an apartment—” 

Rio furrows his brow on _ we’ll_, his face asking the question that he won’t.

“Oh,” Beth stammers. “We, um. We’re doing this new divorce thing called nesting? It’s—well, it’s good for the kids, they say—you know, if the parents can make it work, and um, we’re going to try that. We’ll share an apartment, the kids will stay here, and uh, we’ll switch off…” 

Rio’s face is indifferent, but she can hear the sound of his leg bouncing as the footrest on his chair squeaks. “So you tellin’ me you gonna be sharin’ a bed.” 

Beth scrunches her face. “Well, um, I mean, if you want to be technical.” 

“'Technical' just another word for ‘right.’”

“Well,” Beth stutters. “Well—I kind of thought this was a way for—um—_ us _ to share a bed more.” 

Her face _ burns _ and it only gets worse when Rio looks up at her. Beth takes a timid step towards Rio, who shifts in his seat. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” She takes another step and another, and Rio turns so that he’s facing her now. Sitting down, he’s eye level with her. Beth doesn’t have to look up at him, but somehow that just makes him more intimidating. She exhales shakily. “It’s nice to see you.” 

Rio doesn’t answer her; he just kisses her. It’s firm and Beth immediately feels heat pool at her center—it’s been too long, and she’s tired of her vibrator, and she melts into the feeling of his hands snaking around her waist until he startles her by pinching her ass a little harder than she’d expect. She squeals and he breaks the kiss to look at her with blown-out pupils. 

Beth blushes under his gaze, and Rio stands. He kisses Beth hungrily while he leads her backward until she bumps up against the island and her spine digs into the counter. There’s no teasing or tenderness, just pure greed as he unbuttons her jeans and jams his hands down her panties.

Maybe he’s missed her, too.

She’s already wet, and he groans a little in the back of his throat as he jabs a finger inside of her, but the angle is strange and it’s not quite as pleasurable as either of them would like. Rio gives up on that and is relentless with his pace and pressure against her clit as he uses his other hand to rip open the buttons on her blouse. He begins to suck a hickey into the skin at the top of her breast, and Beth places her hands on the back of his neck. As Beth gets closer to her peak, she squirms a little underneath him, and he bites her nipple through her lace bra. She comes on his hand and exhales, expecting a reprieve, but he gives her none—just keeps going until she gives a long, miserable moan and comes again. 

“Rio,” she pants, her head falling back. He snaps his hand back from her panties as quickly as he had plowed into them. 

Rio stops kissing her skin to put his hands on her hips and spin her so that she’s facing the refrigerator and he’s at her back. He yanks her jeans and her panties down just to her knees. She can hear the sound of him undoing his belt buckle and his zipper, and she shivers with the anticipation.

The island is taller than that counter in Mayor’s bathroom, though, so she has to stand on her tip toes. He pushes on her shoulder so that she leans over and sticks her ass out for him. A shudder overcomes her when he drives himself into her. He’s dogged as he thrusts in and out of her, rough even. Her hips dig into the sharp corner of the counter, and she moans in both pleasure and pain.

Rio’s last thrust hits her like a train. He bites her shoulder as he pulls out of her. She’s still breathless and shaky, sinking back to flat feet and leaning over the counter to stabilize herself, when she hears the unmistakable sound of him zipping his pants back up. 

Beth turns and Rio’s eyes are on his belt as he finds the right hole to pierce. 

“I gotta go,” he says, not looking at her.

“What?”

“Might have a lead on some place for Kostra.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“I’mma be late,” he says, and he meets her eyes for a second. “I’ll hit you up about it later.”

Beth feels—well, she’s not sure what she feels. The sex had been good, excellent even, but harsher, and the abrupt goodbye feels—

She swallows thickly, then composes herself by buttoning her own jeans and as much of her blouse as she can, though some buttons are definitely missing now. 

“Okay, well—we should talk about gun lessons, too.”

Rio nods, and then he turns on his heel and he’s gone. 

* * *

The lead on Kostra comes to nothing, but Rio does start her on gun lessons. They meet two times in the next week, and the sex they have afterward is somewhat the same. Once he takes her against a wall in the warehouse where they practice, and the other is in his car. Both times are coarse again, but at least in the car they’re face-to-face as she straddles him in the backseat. Still, his eyes are closed more than not, and he digs his nails in her deeply enough that there’s a small trickle of blood that runs from her hip to the waist of her jeans. It’s not painful—it only takes a swipe at her skin for the bleeding to wane and pool into a thin little scab—but still. The Rio she had been with in Canada seems to have evaporated, and Beth’s left feeling on uneven ground with him again, and she has no idea _ why_.

She spends many nights overthinking the whole thing, wondering what the hell has triggered this, and all she can come up with is the fact that he’d told her his family knows about her. She wonders if maybe it has to do with the fact that his mother had worried that they were having an affair? 

Because of this, Beth tries to push Dean into moving quicker on the apartment thing, but it turns out he’d had to take a loan from his mother just to pay the January mortgage, so pooling up money for a deposit is going to be difficult. His new job at AutoZone isn’t exactly raking in the dough, either. January’s nearly over when the FBI hands them back the keys to Boland Motors and he quits, but even though there’s a chance for him to make _ more _ money with the dealership, at least AutoZone was _ guaranteed _ money. With only himself and one fresh-faced salesman that Dean can barely even pay, money barely even trickles in, and Beth finds herself brimming with nervous energy and impatience. 

At this point, of course, Fusil’s shipments have started coming in, and Rio’s boys—_their _ boys, she corrects herself, but can they be considered hers if she’s never met them?—collect the goods from the bins at the Detroit bus depot. It takes a while for the money to actually reach Beth, though, even after they make their first several deliveries. They’d had to pay off one of the bus maintenance guys to even get access to the bins, and Rio said he’d been generous with pricing for the first three drops with each client that had come back to him after the lull. Some clients don’t come back, though. In the interim, they’d found someone else, and it turns out addicts aren’t exactly loyal to their distributors. She's not broke anymore, but she's not flush, either. 

Beth and Rio are both busy with drops, though, and barely have time to see each other outside of the gun lessons. Most times he fucks her, though there are a few times he doesn’t. Either way, he's quick to part from her afterward. Beth clams up around him because she doesn’t even know how to react to this. It’s like the rug has been pulled out from under her, and she feels like she’s done something _ wrong_, but what is it? 

* * *

Beth finally breaks and tells Annie and Ruby about it, because she’s going mad with wonder. Annie doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal, says that it’s not just Beth. It takes her a few weeks, but she finds fifteen clients by finding a one or two clients who network her to others, and she shrugs and says that Rio has been just as perfunctory at their drops and exchanges.

“Maybe it has nothing to do with you at all,” Ruby suggests gently. “We know he’s pretty closed off. Maybe he’s just got some other stressful thing going on and he’s just not ready to talk about it yet?” 

"I mean, maybe," Beth says, twisting her hair in her fingers. "He got in a fight just before all this. He came over one night all beaten up and bloody."

"I'm sure that's it, sweetie."

“If you want to see him outside of work, just invite him somewhere,” Annie says. “I mean, if you’ve learned anything from being with Dean, it’s that you do _ not _want to sit and wait on the sidelines for him to take the initiative. Channel your inner Ariana Grande.”

“What?”

“Be all ‘I want it, I got it,’” Annie says. “Ask him out. What, you think he's going to say _no_? Puh-lease.”

So Beth does. She drafts about ten different text messages asking him out to dinner, but then she decides that’s cowardly, so she drinks a bunch of bourbon and calls him. 

“What’s up?” he answers.

“Can you meet me somewhere?”

“What’s goin’ on? Ever’thing good?”

“Yeah,” Beth says. “I just thought—I was just hoping—maybe—do you want to do dinner?” 

“Dinner?” 

“Yeah.” She exhales. She tries to quote his own words back at him from so long ago when he’d made her dinner at his loft. “It’s this thing where we go out somewhere and we both eat a meal at the same time. Together.”

“Huh,” he says, but there’s some amusement in his voice and it emboldens her.

“Thought we could mix it up,” she says. “Do somethin’ crazy.” 

“That your imitation of me?” 

“I think I do a pretty good job.” She laughs nervously. 

“No, you don’t,” he says, but his voice is light and Beth practically glows. “Aight. Yeah. I can do dinner.” 

And so they do.

* * *

Rio picks this off-the-grid Mexican joint and meets her there. It’s in this little brick building, and the tables are all close together so that it’s loud and noisy. Beth’s actually relieved, though, because it means they can’t really talk about business since it’s so out in the open. 

He’s already seated when she arrives, and he actually stands when she gets the table and presses a hasty kiss to her cheek. 

“Hey.”

He just looks at her in response, a small smile playing at his lips, but it doesn’t fully form. Beth can actually see the muscles sort of bouncing around in his face as he tries to neutralize his expression. 

As Beth reaches for the menu, Rio interrupts her. “Nah, don’t look at that. You gotta order the pulpo bravo.”

“What is that?” she asks, scanning the list of items for a description.

“Grilled octopus with some roasted potatoes and capers. Cilantro, chimichurri, spicy dry chili marinade. It’s good. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Beth doesn’t know what chimichurri is, but she grins and sets her menu back down. She takes a sip of water and asks, “Is that what you get?”

“Nah, I always get chilate de pollo. It’s a spicy soup—not sure you could handle it, ma.” 

Hearing him call her _ma_ like this makes her glow.

The waitress comes and takes their order, and Rio lets Beth order for herself, which is simultaneously a relief (Dean never had) and somewhat embarrassing because she forgets the name of the dish and has to rapidly scan the menu to find it. 

“It’s really nice to see you,” she admits over her margarita. 

Rio’s eyes bore into her and she feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Rio’s opens his mouth respond when they turn to their left at the sound of someone saying, “_Beth? _ Is that you?” 

She looks at the man in front of her, trying to place him. Maybe a customer from Boland Motors? A karate dad from Danny’s class? One of the PTA moms' husbands…? He’s probably 5’10” with blonde hair and a clean-shaven face, and he wears slacks and a cardigan over a plaid button-up with a tie. Definitely PTA-mom material. 

“Hi!” she says, as if she knows him, hoping he’ll give her a hint, but he sees right through her.

“Oh my gosh, you don’t recognize me,” he says, and he rubs at his face, laughing. “Ouch! I must be getting old.” 

“I’m so sorry—”

Just then another man, similar in build and features, pops up behind him. It looks like they were both on their way out of the restaurant. 

“Tim, it’s Beth. _ Beth _ Beth,” the first man says to the second. 

“Whoa, seriously?” the second man turns to take in Beth, and he looks her up and down. “How’ve you been? You look _ great_!”

Beth is mortified. _ He _ knows her, too? 

“She doesn’t remember me, man,” the first man says with a chuckle. 

“Oof,” the second one says, putting his hand to his heart like he’s wounded, too. “That’s gotta hurt.”

Beth glances at Rio, who is watching the exchange with a mixture of annoyance and boredom.

“I really am sorry,” Beth says, pushing her bangs out of her face. “Please, remind me.”

“Beth, it’s me. Peter.” 

“Peter?” 

“Gee, I don’t think you meant quite as much to her as she did to you,” the second man says, nudging the first in the ribs. 

“Peter Schott,” the first man says, and _ oh my god_, _ Pete Schott! _She can't believe she didn't recognize him. He was her very first boyfriend—the one who’d caught her completely by surprise with their first kiss when he’d pointed out ice cream on her face. They’d dated from her the middle of her freshman year to the beginning of her sophomore year. They'd broken up just a few months before she met Dean when he was repeating 10th grade Algebra 2. Pete had been a year older than Beth, though, so she hadn’t really kept tabs on him, wouldn't have even seen him at the 10 or 20 year reunions. 

“Oh my god!” Beth stands to hug him, and Peter leaves his hand lingering on Beth’s elbow when they part. She turns to what must be his little brother. “Is _this_ Timmy?” 

“We outgrew the childhood version of our names,” the brother says, grinning. “Peter and Tim now, thanks. We're full-fledged adults now.”

“Oh, of course.”

Rio makes a noise in his throat like _ I’m still here _ and they all turn to him. Beth sees Peter and Tim take in his tattoo and the chain on his neck, and probably the all-too-serious expression he's wearing.

“Oh gosh,” she fumbles. “I’m so sorry. This is Peter and his brother, Tim. Peter and I—we dated in high school.”

“Wasn’t she your first girlfriend?” Tim asks Peter.

“Yep, first love. Very special,” Peter says, and he laughs again. He nods at Rio in some sort of deference to him. 

“Sounds like it was memorable,” Rio drawls, and Beth blushes scarlet. 

“This is Rio,” Beth says, licking her lips. 

Peter removes his hand from Beth’s elbow and sticks it out for Rio to shake. “Rio, huh?”

Rio scans Peter and Tim up and down, judgment laying heavy on his face. His gaze rests on Peter’s outstretched hand, and then, reluctantly, he takes it and pumps it once. 

“This must be your…?” Peter starts, clearly fishing.

Beth hesitates. Her _what?_ With the way things have been between them lately, and the way they have carefully _ avoided _ this conversation for months? She's at a loss. 

“My friend. My coworker. My coworker that is my friend. We’re good friends. We met at… work.” 

_ Jesus Christ_, she thinks. _ Get a hold of yourself_. She knows her lie is bad, but where the fuck do people meet friends these days? Rio’s eyebrows knit together. 

Peter glances at Beth, unsure of what to do with that spiel. “You still married?” he asks instead of clarifying the nonsense that she’d just spewed. His eyes dart to her ringless left hand, and she can tell he’s trying to suss out her status. “Last I heard you ended up with Dean Boland, right?” 

“God, do you remember that you almost asked her to prom that year that guy did? Imagine how different things might’ve been!” Tim says, and everyone at the table looks at him in pure embarrassment for his comment. 

Beth chooses not to respond to what Tim has said at all. “Oh, um, no. Dean and I recently split. The divorce should be finalized any day now.” 

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, and his voice is soft and genuine. “I went through that last year.”

“Yeah, it’s not great.” Beth shrugs it off and changes the subject. “I didn’t know you ended up back in Detroit after college.”

“I didn’t, actually,” Peter explains. “I was over in Ann Arbor for a long time, but uh, actually, my grandfather passed away recently, and Tim and I inherited the old toy store so… I came back.” 

“Wow, I’m so sorry,” Beth says gently. “I didn’t know the toy store was still open. That’s wonderful that you’re going to keep it going, though.” She remembers spending afternoons at the shop with Peter way back when. Obviously, there hadn’t been a lot of money at the Marks household for toys, and Annie enjoyed going in and playing with the model dollhouses and racetracks while Beth and Peter had shared bottles of Coca Cola. Sometimes they would escape to the storeroom and awkwardly make out—if they could get Annie hooked on some toy for long enough. 

Rio suddenly looks at Peter with new interest.

“Thanks,” Peter says. He glances at Rio, whose just openly staring at him now, and then he says in a rush, “You look really wonderful. We should catch up sometime? Can I—can I get your number?”

Beth wants to shrivel up. She steels herself and looks at Rio, silently asking him what he would like her to do here. He hasn’t wanted to make them official in any capacity, but he doesn’t seem to love this scenario, either, so... He inclines his head and gives a wry smile. “Well?”

“Sure,” Beth says to Peter, and she forces a smile. Peter hands her his phone and she punches in her number. She’s saved from any further torment, however, when the waitress comes with their food. Peter and Tim make a hasty exit, and Beth breathes a sigh of relief. 

Once the waitress deposits their food and disappears, Beth apologizes to Rio.

“Whatchu sorry about?” he asks, taking a chicken leg out of his soup and starting to eat it. 

“Well, _ that_, obviously.”

Rio finishes chewing, takes a swig of beer, and says, “Why?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. It was awkward.”

“Why, ‘cause your high school boyfriend still wants to fuck you?”

“I mean—I wouldn’t say it like that,” Beth mumbles, taking a bite of her food. It’s delicious, but Beth doesn't feel very hungry anymore.

“You gotta stop pretending you don’t look like you do,” Rio says, and it should feel like a compliment, but Beth just feels defensive. “Anyway, you can use that to your advantage.” 

“What do you mean?” Her eyes narrow. 

“I mean, we lookin’ for a business for our dealings with Kostra, and your boy just told us he owns an independent toy store.” 

“You want me to _ sleep _ with him?” Beth asks, highly offended. “You’d ask me to do that for a business deal?” 

“Not what I said,” Rio says, and he takes another bite of his food. He chews slowly, like he can’t be bothered to finish what he’s saying on any sort of timeline. Beth squirms in her chair. “Though if that’s where your mind jumped…” 

“Stop,” Beth says. “It didn’t.”

Rio licks his teeth. “We pursuin’ this. It’d be dumb as fuck not to. So when he calls to ask you out? Say yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> We're about to go into an angsty spiral, y'all, and I'm so sorry but I promise there are going to be LOTS of good moments to come!
> 
> It was such a delight to read your favorite moments from last chapter. Thank you all SO much!


End file.
